We are thankful for so much, but what has happened in the last week is unbelievable…
Your votes! You did it and we where in the top 100 in the Chase Community Giving contest! We are going to be getting a grant for $25,000, which is such a huge reason to be thankful!
All of your votes made us get 16th place in only 4 days of voting. We are very honored that people all over voted for us! They took a minute out of their busy days to make a huge difference in the lives of the horses.
On November 5th at the last auction rescue we rescued a horse who our Facebook fans named Shyler. He looked very old and bedraggled. In his evaluation his lip was lifted revealing a tattoo. He was identified as a 3 year old off the track Thoroughbred named Stardust Dancer owned by MGM CEO Gary Barber. We had a reporter contact us wanting to do a story about Stardust. We also made a video about Stardust, which you can see by clicking here.
Jeromie Williams wrote a great article, some say is the best article they have ever read about the unwanted racehorse issue. During the research for the article both Tawnee and Jeromie tried to find contact information for Gary Barber but were unable. You can read the article by clicking here.
At 7:30 the next morning after the article was released there was a call and email from Gary Barber’s representative. We feared that Gary Barber didn’t care what happened to his horses and was just dumping them, but come to find out he has had a long standing policy of good homes for his retired race horses that his trainers were responsible for finding. With Stardust Dancer this did not happen. Gary Barber thanked us for bringing this to his attention and has now for the exciting part:
Gary Barber has pledged to be a strong advocate and supporter and will be surrendering future retired racehorses to ensure that they do not fall into the slaughter pipeline again. This is great news for his horses and a huge step in the right direction for people in the racing industry. Gary Barber is standing up and being an example to fellow race horse owners to do the right thing when the horses athletic days are over. Way to go Gary! We are thankful for your decision!
We urge you to send a letter to us that we can pass on to Gary Barber thanking him for doing the right thing, again we cannot stress how huge this is making this decision and going public with it. As far as we know, he is the first racehorse owner to agree to surrender all retired racehorses to a humane society instead of dumping them at auction. You can also post on MGM Studio’s Facebook wall by clicking here.